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Our investment philosophy

Our investment philosophy is the overall set of principles and strategies that guide and steer investment decisions. It helps simplify a complex industry and allows us to focus on our clients, safe in the knowledge that we are doing our best to protect and grow their assets.

Whilst investment performance hinges on many factors out of our control – most notably, the returns on markets – we can control other factors.

These are the ones we deem the most important in creating and managing a portfolio such as the types of funds you invest in, the cost of the investments you choose and what you look for when choosing the investment companies you do business with.

We provide independent advice

We are Independent Financial Advisers because we believe that it is important that we are not restricted in any way at the point we recommend a product or fund to you. It is also important to us that we do not have any contractual relationships in place which require us to place business with any particular provider of products or funds; this would compromise our independence and create a conflict of interest when providing advice.

We believe in diversification

One of the most important views to arise from modern portfolio theory is that investors should avoid concentrated sources of risk by holding a diversified portfolio.

We believe cost is an important investment criteria

We recognise the need to select companies with sufficient financial strength and adequate levels of service. However, cost is one of the few known criteria at the outset and it has a demonstrable impact on future investment returns.

We believe in strategic asset allocation

One of the most important investment decisions we make for clients is what assets to invest their money in. Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) states that, by combining different types of assets, the collective investment will have a lower level of risk (defined as variance in investment return) than if the money was held in a single investment.

We believe in tactical asset allocation

Tactical asset allocation is an active management portfolio strategy that rebalances the percentage of assets held in various classes and sub-classes; in order to take advantage of short and intermediate-term market inefficiencies.

We create an investment approach that is unique to you

We believe that cost is important to the performance of a portfolio, but also that an active fund manager can bring much value to the running of a portfolio. As a result, we have extensive market research underpinning our advice, with access to over 200,000 daily feeds providing market information. All portfolios created are underpinned with a risk analysis that is matched to the level of volatility that you are willing to accept for the prospect of future returns. This, in turn, is matched to a relevant benchmark to be reviewed as part of our ongoing advisory proposition. If you engage us for ongoing services, we will analyse how the portfolio is performing, relative to the selected benchmark and risk tolerance.

Investments carry risk. The value of your investment (and any income from them) can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested.